teratornis

Hey, I'm Teratornis, or just Tornis, named for an extinct genus of condor-like bird.

I've been involved in various art communities for a lot of years, and much more recently in fandom and writing communities. I've taken to participating in at least a couple of exchanges and events a year, and I tend to write pretty extensively on my own projects the rest of the time.

Highlander is my perpetual main fandom for the moment. I write a lot of original work as well, though most of my original projects are a bit lapsed. There are plenty of other fandoms I'm into as well, and plenty of things I enjoy writing. Just depends on when inspiration strikes.

I'm always down to chat about things I love and meet new people who love similar things. Feel free to comment or message me here if you like.

Transformative Works Policy: Feel free to create stuff inspired by my work, make podfic, translate, etc. Just please get in touch and send me a link! I'd love to see anything people come up with. Please do not repost any of my work, and absolutely do not use LLMs/genAI for anything involving me or my work in any way.

Current Projects:
Highlander: The Agent
This is a collaborative project with

argentum_ls, following Matthew McCormick five years after his canon appearance in the Highlander episode Manhunt. We've been working on it for almost two years, and posting for one. We're currently about halfway through posting the planned stories.

Places to Find Me:
My AO3 Page
My Personal Tumblr
My other Tumblr where I reblog a bunch of cool art and stuff

Current Music: Mechanicus Soundtrack - Children of the Omnissiah

I've been on a bit of a movie kick again the last few days. I even went to a movie theater earlier this month. I actually love seeing movies at the theater, but I don't do it very often (price, time committment, etc.). We did discover this particular theater does $7 matinees on Tuesdays (my day off!), though, so I might have to go back down the line for that.

Movies discussed are Spider-Man: Brand New Day (there will be spoilers), Masters of the Universe, Twisters, In the Grey, and The Mandalorian and Grogu. Actually since most of these are pretty recent movies, I guess disclaimer that there'll be spoilers for all of them.
( Read more... )

Still feeling a bit of a movie watching bug. Not sure what I want to watch next, but I've got a list, so we'll see what I end up glancing at.

Current Music: Echoes - A Plague Tale Legacy ost

I've largely been reading more fanfic than books again for a bit, but there have still been some good books the last couple months (and some not-as-good ones), so here are more book reviews!

One in the morning is a normal time to post book reviews, right?

Books discussed are The Salt Grows Heavy and Nothing but Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw, Slewfoot by Brom, and Apparently Sir Cameron Needs to Die by Greer Stothers (with brief mentions of Honor & Heresy by Max Francis, and When the Earth was Green by Riley Black).
( Read more... )

I'm hoping to read Babel, by R.F. Kuang at some point soonish, I've got it on hold. A friend has recommended it very highly, and I'm looking forward to checking it out.

At long last, this year's Casefic Exchange has revealed! This exchange had quite a few delays due to needed pinch hits (including me, this was my first time being a pinch hit in an exchange, as far as I know), so reveals were delayed I believe about two months. The delays were totally understandable, obviously there needs to be time to make sure everyone gets their gift and that the writers have the time they need to do their stuff, but it's exciting that reveals are here.

This was my first time participating in Casefic Exchange. I wasn't actually planning to participate this year, either, but a lot of the requests were really intriguing, and I was feeling inspired at the time, so I ended up jumping in.( Read more... )

This exchange was definitely an interesting experience for me, given my own struggles with writing for it this time, but it's really a great event. There's a ton of creativity on display, and at this point I'm greatly enjoying reading through some of the other stories in the collection. Definitely some good stuff.

Current Music: The First Hunter - Bloodborne OST

A few years ago, both for keeping track of my own reads and because I got asked pretty regularly for book recommendations, I put together a Big Ol' Book List of stuff I had read and enjoyed. I maintained it for a couple of years, and then sort of stopped updating it.

I've been getting asked for book recommendations a bunch lately, though, so I spent a bit of time dusting the list off and updating it, and figured I'd throw a link for it here, on the off-chance anybody might want to take a glance.

Here's the book list!

It's mostly fiction on there, but there's a handful of nonfiction items, too.

Current Music: Victorious - Nini Music & Kuular

I've watched X-Files before, I think at least most of it, but it's been a long time and i remembered very little beyond sort of the general premise and a handful of specific bits and pieces.

I've been meaning to rewatch for a while, and finally the absolutely spectacular art (and fic!) of one Rosenkranz has inspired me to do so (seriously, go check them out, they are an amazing artist and writer).

( Read more... )

Still have quite a bit left to watch, and I'm not sure if I'll finish it (from what I remember and have been told, it gets pretty weird in a bad way after the sixth season, so we'll see), but for the moment I'm quite enjoying my rewatch. We'll see if opinions change as I go.

I tend to swing gradually back and forth between reading mostly fanfic, and reading mostly books. Right now I'm on a mostly books kick, so I thought I'd write some blurbs about what I've read lately.

Books discussed are the Sworn Soldier series by T. Kingfisher, Shadow of the Leviathan series by Robert Jackson Bennett, The Society of Unknowable Objects and The Book of Doors by Gareth Brown, The Summer War by Naomi Novik, Rule of Wolves by Leigh Bardugo, and Proto by Laura Spinney.

( Read more... )

Next up for reading is Honor & Heresy, by Max Francis. I don't know much about it, but it's been on my holds list for quite a while. I'll be curious to see where it goes.

Current Music: Hades II

As I have done for the past couple of years, I participated once again in

bitesizedfandomsex. While I can't say it was quite as wild as last year (in which I received four(!) gifts and was directly or indirectly responsible for tripling the number of fics for a specific song fandom on ao3), it was definitely a really fun time.

( Read more... )

Again a super enjoyable exchange experience, with some really interesting nominations and requests, and some other great stories in the collection. Once again gonna plan to participate next year, it's a good one.

Current Music: Subnautica 2

I haven't been digging up movies to watch at quite the rate I was a few weeks ago, but I've watched a few films over the course of May that I thought I'd talk about a little. Or a lot, maybe. I have Opinions.

Films discussed are 50 to 1, Primitive War, Haywire, and The Sheep Detectives.
( Read more... )

This week's Friday Five.

Boy there have been a lot of Friday Five sets I find compelling lately. Here's another!
( Read more... )

Current Music: Checkfield - Distant Thunder

This week's Friday Five.

Now this is an interesting one. Some easy questions, and one or two I had to think about some.
( Read more... )

Current Music: Baroon - Rastak

argentum_ls and I are still working diligently on writing and posting our Highlander: The Agent project, and as of last night's chapter, the series is clocking in at (exactly, due to some finicky wordsmithing on LS' part) 250k words!

It's so many words. I don't really know what we expected in terms of length when we started this series, we're both such pantsers that there's so little outright planning that goes into any of this, but we're both pretty excited to be at this point.

For a little bonus in honor of this occasion, here are some stats on the project!
( Read more... )

By the time we're finished with this series, the plan is to have 10 full multi-chapter casefic stories, and however many corresponding shorts we end up writing to go along with them. I'm still a little flabbergasted at how huge this project got, but it's been such a fun experience so far, all 250k words of it!

Current Music: Komanene - Jenny The Golden voice ft Undjee Jojo Meroro

I've been on a bit of a movie kick recently. I actually went to the theater a couple weeks back — something I don't do nearly as often as I'd like, but I have to work for a living and a matinee doesn't exactly cost five bucks anymore — and watched a handful of other movies after that for the hell of it.

So some thoughts on my recent watches, in order of viewing (films discussed are Project Hail Mary, Bullet Train, Kraven the Hunter, Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice, and Suzume).
( Read more... )

In days to come, I really need to watch Sinners and Nope, and I've been told to watch Primitive War for the dinosaur designs, if not the plot (. . . definitely not for the plot). Maybe I'll finally give those a look soon.

Current Music: SHIRINA - Navid Zardi

Runaway to the Stars is a long-term graphic novel project that I've been following for a number of years now. In light of its recently-launched (and already successful!) Kickstarter campaign for PDF and print formats of the comic, I thought I'd write a bit about this project.

This is going to get long, and contains images (all images are linked to the source, so they can be viewed embiggened in their natural habitat).( Read more... )

Edit: a fun addition to this, Jay Eaton has recently done a pretty fascinating Q&A about this project.

Current Music: Sokoto - JANÉA

This week's Friday Five.

Wow, two Friday Fives in a row I wanna do. How exciting. And I'm actually doing it on friday, too.
( Read more... )

Current Music: Hantanang - Prabin Rai Zing, Prayadeep Rai, Sona Rai

This week's Friday Five.

I do love talking about music, and to be honest I'd never really analyzed the stuff that gets stuck in my head most often, so this seems like a fun one to dive into.( Read more... )

Current Music: Girl of Mysterious Sorrow - Marc Cohn

With some frequency I think to myself that I'd really like to talk more about various shows/movies/books/music here, and then I don't do that, so in light of a recent Burn Notice rewatch, I figured I'd write some stuff down.

So. Burn Notice.

I started watching this show while it was still airing, in its. . . third or fourth season, I believe. Just in time for the absolute doozy of the fourth season's mid-season cliffhanger, naturally. I remember, at the time, really enjoying the first few seasons, and then not enjoying the latter seasons as much. Since then I've rewatched the first couple seasons a time or two, but never got past the fourth season again because of that vague memory of not enjoying the show so much past that point. This time, I watched the whole series through for I think the first time since my initial viewing.

And I am really glad I did.( Read more... )

LS and I have finished posting another of our Matthew McCormick main stories, and this one was a bit of a milestone for a couple of different reasons.

Small Town Mentality (30614 words) by argentum_ls, Teratornis
Chapters: 9/9
Fandom: Highlander: The Series
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Matthew McCormick, Original Characters, Gregor Powers
Additional Tags: Canon-Typical Violence, Case Fic, TV Logic, Minor Character Death
Series: Part 12 of Highlander: The Agent
Summary: With Talbot on leave, Matthew travels on his own to assist with a months-old serial case in a small, insular town. As he digs deeper and the murderer accelerates, he's forced to confront his assumptions about who is a friend, and who is a foe.

( Read more... )

hlh_shortcuts has concluded for the year, and everyone's stories are live and no longer anonymous. This is my third time participating, and it was, as has been the case for me the past couple of years, a ton of fun. It's always exciting to see what people request, and what people come up with to write.( Read more... )

Had an excellent time with this event this year. As always, looking forward to the next one. ❤️

Current Music: Albion - Syr

Seen done by both

rhi and

argentum_ls.

01. Grab the nearest book.
02. Turn to page 126
03. The 6th full sentence is your life in 2026.

I'll be honest I mostly did this because I knew my D&D books were the closest to me. So from D&D 3rd Edition's Complete Arcane: A Player's Guide to Arcane Magic for All Classes:

"However, if the subject gains at least as many negative levels as it has Hit Dice, it dies."

. . . Cheery.

(From the lvl 7 spell Sword of Darkness.)

Current Music: Leverage: The First David Job

argentum_ls and I wrapped up another one of our Highlander: The Agent stories last night! This is the fifth in the series, which puts us at the halfway mark for what we've got planned. We've been posting these stories for almost a year now, and working on them for almost two, which is wild to think about.

Come to Light (31757 words) by argentum_ls, Teratornis
Chapters: 10/10
Fandom: Highlander: The Series
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Matthew McCormick & Original Character(s)
Characters: Matthew McCormick, Original Characters
Additional Tags: Canon-Typical Violence, Case Fic, Implied/Referenced Character Death, TV Logic, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, secrecy
Series: Part 10 of Highlander: The Agent
Summary: A killer Matthew failed to stop decades ago resurfaces, and his secrecy regarding the depths of his connection to the investigation threatens his partnership with Talbot.

As usual, some stuff about the process of this story:( Read more... )

Current Music: Critical Role C4: Knives and Thorns

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teratornis

August 2026

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Recent Entries

Sticky: Intro and General Info

More recent movie watches

Some more books!

Casefic Exchange 2026

Book List

TV Show: The X-Files (seasons 1 and 2)

Some Books!

Bite-Sized Exchange 2026

A few more movies

Friday Five Questions: Live Music

Friday Five: Fandom History

250k milestone stats!

A few recent movie watches

Graphic Novel: Runaway to the Stars

Friday Five Questions: Current Stuff

Friday Five Questions: Music and Earworms

TV Show: Burn Notice

Matthew McCormick Project: Small Town Mentality

Highlander Holiday Shortcuts 2025

Book Meme

Matthew McCormick Project: Come to Light